You may remember, in the Flyers’ season-opening win over the Los Angeles Kings, longtime Kings netminder Jonathan Quick wasn’t in net that night. That was because in the Kings’ own season opener, he suffered an injury that we’ve since learned will sideline him for a few months. This is obviously bad news for the Kings, who have leaned on Quick a lot over the past several seasons. (Quick’s primary backup, Jeff Zatkoff, is also now hurt.)
So it’s not surprising to hear, as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported earlier today in his 30 Thoughts piece, that the Kings have poked around a bit trying to find a suitable replacement for him. And at least one of the names Friedman mentioned will sound familiar to you:
8. Before bringing in Anders Lindback, the Kings did an exhaustive look around the NHL. Among their considerations: Pavelec, Steve Mason and Reto Berra. Mason’s $4.1-million contract wouldn’t fit and it’s not as if Philadelphia has a ton of flexibility either. Florida’s price wouldn’t have been high on Berra and it sounds like the Panthers recognized giving him a chance to get back to the NHL was the right thing to do. But the Kings didn’t see him as enough of an upgrade. If they were going to go out and get anyone, it had to be someone who clearly eclipsed Peter Budaj.
(Emphasis above is ours.)
That the Flyers and Kings have talked here is not at all surprising, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, the two organizations are pretty familiar with one another. Ron Hextall, of course, worked with the Kings for seven years before coming back to Philadelphia, and has executed two trades with them in his time as Flyers General Manager.
Additionally, the Flyers’ goalie situation does seem like one that, to a team looking for immediate short-term goaltending help, is worth asking about. Steve Mason and Michal Neuvirth are both guys who have shown that they can be decent-or-better goalies, and neither of them has a contract that runs beyond this season — perfect for the Kings, who have Quick’s mammoth contract on their books until 2023 and as such would prefer not to take on more long-term money at the position.
Friedman specifically mentions Mason, though, and for reasons he also describes, it’s not too hard to see why things couldn’t work there. Both the Flyers and Kings are a bit tight when it comes to space nowadays — the Flyers are dipping into their long-term injured reserve space, while the Kings, via CapFriendly, have less than $1 million of room themselves. There’d likely need to be similar amounts of salary moved between the two sides to facilitate a deal, and that’s a tricky deal to make work.
What may be more curious here is the name that wasn’t mentioned, and that’s Neuvirth. If cap space is an issue, then it’s somewhat surprising that Neuvirth — who only makes $1.625 million against the cap this year, close enough to the Kings’ limit that they may be able to get him in without a significant shake-up — isn’t someone the Kings reportedly looked at much in their attempts to improve in net. (In fairness, we don’t know if or how much the Kings may have considered Neuvirth as an option; we only know that, from what Friedman has reported, he does not appear to be “among” the names they gave serious thought to.)
In any case, we don’t have much inclination to believe the Flyers would trade Mason or Neuvirth right now. Hextall insisted at the beginning of last offseason that while he’d listen to offers on both of his goalies, he likes the situation the team has now and would like to keep it as it is, with the two goalies being around to push one another.
Right now, Mason appears to be the team’s No. 1 goalie — in every game since the opener (in which Neuvirth played very well against, fittingly enough, Los Angeles), Mason has either started or replaced Neuvirth mid-game. Neuvirth hasn’t played well, while Mason has had a strong past few games.
Still, the Flyers have seen both of these goalies play enough to know that they’re both capable of hot and cold streaks, and you’d have to think they’re hoping and even expecting Neuvirth to eventually turn things around and will just roll with Mason in the meantime. As Charlie alluded to in his observations for Tuesday night’s win over Buffalo — a win in which Neuvirth was pulled after allowing three second-period goals:
For the second straight start, Neuvirth was off his game. While it’s tough to blame him for Ennis’ deflection goal, his positioning was poor on both power play tallies, and Hakstol rightfully pulled him in favor of Mason as a result. Once in the game, Mason was a steadying force, stopping all eight Buffalo shots and both shootout chances. His save percentage remains “just okay” at 0.901, even if Mason’s last three appearances have fallen somewhere between good and stellar. But Neuvirth is a total mess right now, ranking second-to-last in league save percentage.
This is why trading Mason (or Neuvirth, for that matter) was always a misguided idea. Goalies can struggle seemingly at random, and have unexplainable bad seasons. But if your team stockpiles two above-average true-talent netminders, the chances of both having a bad year simultaneously are pretty low. Right now, Neuvirth is struggling and Mason isn’t, so Hakstol can ride Mason for a while while Neuvirth tries to fix his issues. That’s a luxury that many teams simply do not have.
Could this change as the season goes on? Sure. If one of the two really grabs the reins and runs with the job and the Flyers look to give him a long-term contract, the other one could very well become trade bait. But we’re seven games into the season, and the decision to make such a move this early in the year would be a bit hasty, at least.
All of which is to essentially reinforce the idea that right now the Flyers aren’t going to trade either one of their goalies unless they’re simply bowled over with an offer they have to take, which appears to be something L.A. can’t provide right now. We’ll see if that changes later in the year.
